OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM -- make straighted to the nines in his best wilderness camouflage uniform and surrounded by means of his security forces family.

OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM -- make straighted to the nines in his best wilderness camouflage uniform and surrounded by means of his security forces family, a nervous further composed senior airman stood at attention in the command section at a forsaken air base.

"James Earl Evans, will you have Andrea to be your wedded wife, to live together in the saint-like state of matrimony, will you have affection for her, comfort her, honor and restrain her in sickness and in health and forsaking all others, keeping all single unto her so long as you the pair shall live?" a woman's voice be sounded backed from a speakerphone.

"I do," he said without hesitation.

point of times later, after the same words, a young lady sitting in an area defense forethought office at a base half a world away quickly said, "I do."

on the same level though the world separated them physically, Senior Airman James Evans and his fiance Andrea reunited via fax and phone briefly to exchange their wedding vows

Evans, a member of the capricious Air Force Base, Ga., 823rd Combat Security Forces Squadron, and his recently made known bride moved up their wedding date and decided to marry by dint of proxy after learning he would promptly deploy to an undisclosed location.

"We were engaged just before I left to take rise here and were supposed to be married July 14" he said. "But with the uncertainty of in what way much longer we'll be expanded and the fact that I want Andrea taken care of should anything happen, we decided to do it now."

The Evanses met while serving as designated drivers for their friends at a function and dated for more than pair years. They've endured four deployment -- James is constantly in succession alert to deploy worldwide at a moment's notice.

"I be enamoured of James more than any thing upon this earth and knew he was the man I wanted to bestow the rest of my life with the trice we met," Andrea said. "He's an intelligent, reflective creative person who has a apportionment of initiative.

"Arranging for us to be married to such a degree I'd be taken care of is a completed example of what James does all the time. He takes It concerning himself to do things for tribe without the person asking him, or equable knowing about it."

With the unit in succession tap to move forward within a matter of hours, an Air Force team of commanders, attorneys, personnel specialists, contracting professionals and medical technicians, plus a Lanier shire Ga., probate judge, made several things approach together in a short time.

Capt. Graham Todd, 444th Air Expeditionary cluster staff judge advocate, managed affairs from the opened location. "My first phone call was to Capt. John Hicks at crabbed He's the area defense instruction at the base and a veteran of a previous Georgia marriage according to proxy. He made everything happen forward the stateside end, including helping Andrea with the marriage license application, arranging for a umpire and bringing Andrea onto the base for the ceremony"

Todd notarized the application and provided an affidavit after James signed it.

"Georgia also requires a house test for both members," Todd said. "My family office [the 347th Rescue Wing staff arbitrator advocate office] assisted with research in this area for Andrea while our contracting and medical teams here drew James' posterity and arranged for the innkeeper nation to conduct the test"

one time the paperwork was finished and standards completed, Judge Judy Mullis, a probate connoisseur from Lanier County, Ga., traveled to the base from Lakeland, Ga., to preside throughout the ceremony.

After the solemnity Andrea received a military ID card and was set downed into a worldwide database of military families, retirees and others who are eligible for health care benefits. Todd also assisted James with a will and power of attorney for Andrea.

"I don't know what the to come holds for us," Andrea said, "but I know it will always include James, and I will delight in him all my life. I just chance of the desired end he and every other husband, wife and parent make it family as quickly as possible."

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